Bloodsong
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: Vampire AU. Lucy Heartfilia has her goals in order: publish her first novel, and while she's at it, get promoted from her job as a lowly copyeditor at the floundering magazine, Love & Lucky. Everything is turned upside-down when a chain of events, beginning with a midnight break-in and a bizarre theft, unleashes an intractable, ancient force known only as "bloodsong."
1. Prelude

**A/N:** This is my first Fairy Tail fic, and my first vampire fic. Two birds with one stone!

Tentative update schedule is every Sunday, depending on how often I am able to work on this.

* * *

 _Waiting between your breaths_

 _Lives a silent shadow._

* * *

I shoved the papers, covered in red strikethroughs and corrections, off to the side of my tiny desk. Stretching my fingers wide, I leaned back in the rickety chair and tried to pop the stiffness out of my spine and shoulders.

"Cap, I'm done!" I called into one of the interior offices, and my supervisor walked out of it, an empty mug dangling from one of his large hands.

"Tha-a-at was quick, Lucy," he commented, the peculiarity of his speech skipping like a heartbeat over the vowels.

He slid the draft over toward the edge of the table and gave it a once over, his eyes behind the ever-present sunglasses skimming over the lines. After about fifteen seconds, he tucked the papers under his arm—the one not twirling the mug—and gave me a sharp glance.

"Angling for a promotion?" he inquired, the barest hint of sarcasm making its way into his voice.

I offered a half-hearted chuckle.

"Like that'll ever happen."

Cap gave a disbelieving harrumph—almost a bleat, in my opinion—and turned away from my desk to stride back into his office. He called back:

"At the rate you're going, I wouldn't be too surprised."

I felt my eyebrows disappear into my hair. In my opinion, I had been lucky enough to even be hired—and considering the name of the magazine— _Love & Lucky_—the irony wasn't lost on me.

I caught the eyes of Ari and Loke, who shared the office space with me, and felt my face flush as they grinned. Loke tried to adopt a sultry expression, drawing his eyebrows low over his half-lidded eyes and resting his chin on three fingers. I just thought he looked slightly constipated.

"You're going to move up in the world," he purred. I turned away from him and rolled my eyes at Ari, who giggled and then immediately looked apologetic.

"Right now I'll be content to move out of this chair and get back home," I said, straightening myself from a sitting position and hearing all sorts of pops and snaps as my joints complained.

"See you tomorrow, Lucy," Ari said in her sweet voice, turning back to the reams of notes at her desk.

"Can't I walk you home?" Loke appeared at my elbow, making me nearly jump out of my skin with his sudden appearance.

"Don't you have three hundred more words due tonight?" I shot at him, scooting myself away to increase the space between our bodies.

He shrugged, but returned to his desk with a glance that seemed to say, "Your loss."

I piled my notebooks into a stack and slid them into my bag, nodding to my coworkers as I left the room. I gave Cap a wave as I passed his office, and called a brief farewell to Cancer and Virgo, the style and fashion columnists who were deeply immersed in analyzing whatever bizarre trend _Love & Lucky_ would advocate in its next issue. Approaching the last office before the exit, I spooled up my courage before knocking softly three times on the frame of the open door.

"See you tomorrow, ma'am!"

Aquarius—the managing editor—was on the phone, most likely with her boyfriend, so I was spared from anything harsher than a dismissive wave and a scowl. Thanking the stars, I rocketed out the door before she had a chance to berate me for interrupting her.

The nondescript office of _Love & Lucky _was sandwiched between a foundering consignment shop and a store that seemed to sell an odd combination of trick candles and antique furniture. In the four blocks between the magazine's office and my house, the novelty stores and slightly more mainstream businesses gave way to mid-level apartment buildings. This was the direction I angled my steps after pausing for a few moments, just to enjoy the evening sunshine as it touched my face. Something about spending approximately ten hours balancing on a wobbly chair in a dark office made me feel like my skin didn't get enough light.

It took me barely seven minutes to walk back to my apartment, its proximity being one of the few conveniences of working at one of the smallest, most unfortunately eclectic magazines in the city of Magnolia. The entry-level job let me scrape by with rent, food, and pennies left over for luxuries. But that would all change when my first novel hit the market.

I was busy plotting the next chapter's outline in my head when I twisted the key in the apartment door. I was itching to put my ideas to paper, but the instant the door opened I knew it was a lost cause.

The room, usually neatly arranged, was topsy-turvy with three-quarters of the contents of my roommate's wardrobe. And mine, too, incidentally.

"Juvia, why are my clothes all over the living room floor?"

I didn't get an answer; she was too busy pawing through the stacks of clothes on the floor, muttering something incoherent and urgent under her breath. She didn't even look up to say hello to me. Levy, my other roommate, made her way across the room by agilely hopping between the piles of clothes.

"Date."

Her one word explanation told me nearly everything.

"Gray?" I asked.

Juvia's head snapped up at the mention of the name, and her eyes positively sparkled.

"Juvia and Gray-sama are going to dinner tonight! For the second time!"

She dropped the shirt she was holding—which happened to be _mine_ —and clasped her hands together, lost in a beautiful vision that I was sure would make me gag if I could see it in reality.

"Does it need to be in _my_ clothes?" I huffed, scooping up a skirt and two more shirts from the floor before they got wrinkled.

"Juvia went through all the things in her closet, but nothing seemed quite right," she responded, twitching a lock of curling blue hair out of her face before diving into the next pile.

"I would have offered, but we wear totally different sizes," Levy explained, gesturing ruefully at her own slight frame.

To no one's surprise, Erza walked into the room from the kitchen, where she had obviously been helping herself to the contents of our refrigerator.

"Apparently my fashion choices do not interest Juvia, or I would have been happy to lend anything necessary," she enunciated around a sandwich.

Erza Scarlet lived across the hall from the apartment I shared with Juvia Lockser and Levy McGarden, but she might as well have lived with us for all the time she spent crashing at our place, napping in one of our beds, and eating our food. We would never have kicked her out, though: the first reason being she was scary as hell, and the second was that we really _did_ enjoy her company. She could be overbearing and bossy, but most of the time she acted like our sweet, fiercely protective older sister.

I sighed, resigning myself to an evening of zero productivity, and started gathering articles of my rejected wardrobe to put back in their place. Juvia had finally settled on something to wear—which came out of her own closet, thank goodness. She danced off to change, and Levy joined me in trying to clean the mess off the floor.

"Well, I'm happy _she's_ happy," Levy said, looking towards the door of Juvia's bedroom.

I had to agree. For the last six months, Levy and I, and occasionally Erza, rode the wild rollercoaster of Juvia's obsession with Gray Fullbuster, the handsome lifeguard at the gymnasium and pool where Juvia worked as a swimming instructor. Just a few days ago, her relentless pursuit had finally paid off, resulting in their first official date. The rest of us had yet to meet the supposed dreamboat, but I was hugely looking forward to seeing what kind of guy would be able to withstand Juvia's intense affection.

At that moment, Erza's handheld radio began snapping and crackling, and she jerked it out of the belt at her waist with annoyance.

"Dammit," she muttered, listening to the unintelligible codes someone started rattling off.

"Have to go?" Levy queried, balancing on her knees with an armful of garments.

"Yes."

Erza snapped some instructions into her own radio and stepped quickly towards the door.

"A possible break-in nearby. Nothing too serious."

Levy and I exchanged amused looks listening to the confidence in her voice. Erza could handle an entire posse of robbers without calling for any backup, or possibly even breaking a sweat.

"See you later!" I called after her as she left the door swinging, already in a full sprint down the hallway.

Juvia came out of her room, glancing in confusion at the open door.

"Erza had to go—police stuff," I filled her in.

"When do you meet Gray?" Levy asked, and Juvia got that starry, faraway look again. It rapidly dissolved into an expression of panic as her eyes fell on the wall clock.

"In—twenty minutes! Juvia must have spent too long looking for what to wear!"

"Here," I threw her purse at her, and she caught it effortlessly, already thrusting her feet into her shoes.

"Are you gonna be okay? It's getting a little dark out there," Levy asked with concern, and I followed her gaze out the window. It was summer, so the sun was still well above the horizon, but the beams of light through the window were pinked with the first hint of sunset.

"Juvia will be careful. And she will be with Gray-sama."

"Just as long as you stay on well-lit, busy streets, okay?"

She fluttered her fingers at us while heading for the door, evidently not at all bothered.

"Juvia promises to be safe!"

Levy and I smiled at each other as the door clicked closed behind our roommate. "One-track mind" just didn't seem to cover it.

After a short period of concentrated effort, the floor of the apartment was nearly clean again, and I was starting to regain hope that I could get some writing done before it got too late. After putting the last of the clothes into Juvia's closet, Levy yawned impressively and gave a longing glance to her own bedroom, even though the clock had barely struck eight in the evening.

"I had the earliest shift at the library today, so I think I'm going to try and get to sleep early tonight. You getting ready to write, Lu?"

"I wanted to, before I saw that Erza was here and Juvia had managed to redecorate the place with her closet," I replied, then looked around and shrugged.

"Everything seems quiet enough now, though."

Levy grinned, then her face split in another yawn, and I shooed her into her room to get some sleep. After the door shut behind her, I made my way to the kitchen in search of tea and something with a little more sustenance.

As I passed the window that looked out onto the street below, something streaked across the sky outside, sending a shadowy silhouette rippling across the floor. It had been too big for a bird. A glance outside the window and down to the ground level told me nothing had fallen from one of the upper floors.

I wasn't prone to superstition or over-caution, but a preternatural chill streaked down my spine and I fought to keep myself from going to wake Levy up. It couldn't have been…

No—absolutely not. I was being paranoid and nervous. Shaking myself, I took a firm step back from the window and turned away from the evening dusk gathering outside of it.

It couldn't have been what I thought. No one saw any of _those_ in the daylight. Even at nighttime, they kept to themselves, and far, _far_ away from respectable, inhabited neighborhoods like the one I lived in. I had imagined the shadow.

Still, I made sure the window was locked before going into the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, with tea, soup and crackers grouped invitingly at the small desk in my own room, I was ready to begin work. I let my eyes roam the lines I had most recently penned, trying to pick up the thread and tone of the narrative before I began adding to it. Almost immediately, I felt the stress of the day and the shiver of panic I was still recovering from begin to melt away. Writing could be so relaxing sometimes—while at other times it made me want to rip my hair out and grind my teeth together.

The inconsistency of my abilities was not one of the things I enjoyed about the written word. I loved fitting the sentences together like puzzle pieces, waiting to discover the right combination that would send sparks to the tips of my fingers. I looked forward to developing the characters, letting them speak before I had the chance to edit their words, and allow their identities to form across the pages. I felt almost like a spectator, sometimes, watching a world come to life under my pen. And other times…other times, it was like the words danced in front of me, barely out of reach. I knew they were _there,_ taunting me, but I just wasn't quick or smart enough to capture them.

Fortunately, tonight was one of the easy ones. The lines flew across the page, and before I knew it, over two hours had gone by and several unedited pages spread over the desk, across my lap and onto the floor. Writing was messy.

My tea was cold, the soup and crackers barely touched. I felt a twinge of frustration, but it was overcome by the satisfaction I felt at having accomplished something. I walked back through to the kitchen, not even glancing at the window. The shadow had slipped to the back of my mind—as shadows tend to do.

After cleaning the dishes of the food I had hardly touched, the heavy weight of the day suddenly seemed to settle on my shoulders. I could barely keep my eyes open when walking back to my room and getting ready for bed. After brushing my teeth, I dragged a comb through my hair and set my early alarm for work the next morning. It hadn't been thirty seconds after my head touched the pillow when I was deeply, blissfully asleep.


	2. Rubato

_Before the hunt –_

 _The hunger._

* * *

The strident beeps of the alarm pinched my foggy brain into a state of semi-alertness. I groaned involuntarily, swinging my arm over the side of the bed to swat at the clock on my bedside table. When my left arm hit the mattress after I slapped the snooze button, a dull pain thrummed in the veins at the crook of my elbow, swimming up my body to vibrate behind my eyelids. The sensation was a little strange, but nothing I gave too much notice to. I was more concerned by the fact that I had to drag myself out of bed sometime within the next five minutes.

When I cracked my eyes open, the gray morning sunlight sliced through the blinds and increased the tempo of the pounding behind my eyes. I felt groggier than usual, and the room spun when I sat up on my bed. As I moved to stand, I was surprised at how dizzy and faint I felt, and mentally told myself that I should really have eaten something the night before.

I stumbled through my morning routine in a haze, nearly falling asleep again in the shower before stopping in the kitchen to grab a piece of fruit. Juvia was sitting at the table, chin resting in one hand as she stirred something in her bowl. The beatific expression on her face told me her date had gone well.

"Have a fun time last night?" I asked, propping myself against the refrigerator as I peeled a banana.

"Yes…" she responded dreamily. "Gray-sama and I spent hours talking about—Lucy, what happened to you?! You look terrible!"

The description of her night was cut short when she turned her head to look at where I stood. Her blunt exclamation made me frown. She really could have _tried_ to be more tactful.

"Well, I'm a little tired, that's all."

"Lucy, have you looked in a mirror?"

I thought back, and realized that I hadn't even glanced at my reflection since waking up. Juvia handed me the compact out of her purse so I could see my face staring back at me out of the tiny mirror inside. Only then did I realize that she was still in the outfit she'd worn last night, shoes and all. Now _that_ was interesting. The hint of a smirk crossed my face as I popped the little compact open and saw my face for the first time since waking up.

Sucking in a breath, I instantly realized Juvia was right. The deep blue circles under my eyes caused my face to look skeletal—although that might have been because my skin was several shades paler than normal. My freckles stood out sharply against the stark white, and my lips were cracked and bloodless. I looked downright creepy. I snapped the mirrored compact shut with a little more force than necessary, and offered it back to her while trying to keep a neutral expression.

Still, Juvia had seen my eyes widen, and she took the compact back from me with a concerned look on her face.

"Did you get enough sleep last night? Did something happen?" she questioned, and a small voice in my brain reminded me of the strange dark form that had flitted across the window. I dismissed that fear, trying to reason that it was far more practical to attribute my appearance to lack of adequate rest and nourishment.

"No, nothing happened. I guess my late nights and early mornings are catching up with me, that's all."

I laughed, both to add credibility to my words and to convince myself that I was right. Hopefully it was nothing more than that.

Finishing the banana, I detoured to the bathroom to dab concealer under my eyes and lightly powder blush across my cheekbones. I hoped it would do something to mask the pallor and bring life back to my face. The results weren't great, but would stave off any questions from my coworkers. Looking across the narrow hallway, I saw that Levy's door was still closed. She must have been going to work at the library later today, and was taking the opportunity to sleep in a little more.

Once I completed the barely successful attempt to revive my appearance, I headed out the door. I called a goodbye to Juvia, who was fully re-immersed in her good memories from the night before.

The walk to the office slid past me; I felt like I was underwater. Maybe I was getting sick. I tried to ignore the strange feeling tugging at the back of my brain that the shadow in front of the window from last night was somehow tied to my exhaustion and horrifying appearance.

To my relief, everyone at _Love & Lucky_ was too deep in their work to notice anything "off" about how I looked. Cap dumped a ream of pages on my desk, and I reluctantly brought out my red pen in preparation. If copyediting had me nearly dozing off before today, now it might actually put me to sleep at my desk. The other two barely glanced up at me when I arrived. Loke was bent over his notepad, scribbling forcefully, and Ari was trying to diplomatically reason with someone over the phone, who apparently wanted to complain about the facial mask recipe of ground mustard, radish peel, and watercress that had been in _L &L_'s last issue. Apparently, it made her face smell like the unholy combination of last week's trash from the deli mixed with rotting seaweed.

Ari's soft, repetitive apologies and the scratch of Loke's pencil were so familiar to me that my ears nearly tuned them out entirely. I looked over the first page on my desk, ready to start correcting errors. Three paragraphs in, and I was drifting into unconsciousness before the end of the first article. Shapes flickered behind my eyelids, and I caught myself right before my drooping head touched the pages.

I groaned internally. It hadn't even been fifteen minutes since I'd arrived, and I was already down for the count. The black text rippled in front of my eyes, and the more I tried to hold my lids up, the heavier they felt. What was _happening_ to me? I wasn't usually this much of a mess, even after a short night.

"Lucy?"

Loke's voice slid through my ears and into my slow brain. The two of them were looking at me now, and at this point they _had_ to see just how awful I looked. Sympathetic concern flickered in Ari's eyes, and she got up from behind her desk to set a soft hand on my arm.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she inquired. Instead of answering her, I only succeeded in yawning massively. To my horror, drool started making its way out of the corner of my mouth. I had _some_ dignity left, damn it.

I shifted my arm in her grasp, getting ready to explain away my hellish tiredness. Before I had a chance, she glanced down at her own hand on my elbow and a quick gasp left her throat.

"What is _that?_ "

I followed her stare down to the crook of my left elbow, where a small, blue bruise had formed. I pressed it with the fingers of my right hand, and winced at how sore and sensitive it was. Suddenly, I remembered the pain I had felt turning my alarm clock off this morning when my left arm hit the mattress—the exact same spot Ari was now looking at with apprehension.

"What is it?"

Loke walked over, eyes widening as he saw the surprisingly dark bruise against the total pallor of my skin.

"Whoa. I knew you were clumsy, Lucy, but that's some mark you've got there."

Immediately self conscious, I pulled my arm back from Ari and pressed the mark against my body.

"It's just a little bruise, that's all. Not a big deal."

For some reason, Ari was looking at me like I was about to collapse.

"Are you sure?" she asked fearfully.

I tried to smile.

"Yep! I must have hit it on something."

Obviously unconvinced, Loke dropped the teasing and pinned me with a serious gaze.

"You don't know how you got this?"

 _Now_ I was in for it.

"Guys, please—"

Loke cut my words off, at the same time grabbing my arm and trying to inspect it more closely:

"Did you leave a door open? A window?"

"No, I didn't! Come on, please let go—"

"Lucy, this could be really bad. I'm going to go tell Aquarius—"

I yanked my arm back, fed up with their pointless worry.

"Absolutely not! Haven't you even looked at it? Even _I_ can tell it's harmless."

I pointed at the bruise with my other hand.

"No double punctures. And it's in the wrong place, too—my neck is fine."

Turning my back on them, I delivered my last remark with a tone of finality:

"And there's the most important detail you both seem to have forgotten: I'm still alive. So _obviously_ , there's _nothing_ to worry about."

They still stood there, watching me, until from the corner of my eye I saw Loke turn and give Ari a resigned look. They both returned to their desks, but every now and then each spared an irritatingly concerned glance in my direction. To my relief, neither of them went to speak to Aquarius.

The rest of the day dragged. I lost count of the number of times I drifted into half-consciousness and yanked myself out of it through sheer force of will. An hour before my usual time of departure, Cap stopped in the doorway, took in my utterly pathetic appearance, and demanded that I leave early for the day. Not having the energy to argue, I thanked him and gathered my things, conscientiously hiding my marked arm by folding it across my stomach.

When I walked outside, the bright sunlight of the outdoors sent a small, welcome pulse of energy through my veins. I started walking with a sure step, and after a block, I began to convince myself that this was just a strange day altogether. Nothing would prevent tomorrow from being perfectly normal.

As if to contradict my thoughts, I had taken just a few more steps when a dizzying jolt raced down my spine, followed instantly by the overwhelming sensation that something—some _one_ —was watching me. My legs locked, and my breathing picked up. Turning my head incrementally to the side, I saw the shadowed alleyway between two derelict buildings. Of course I happened to be in the most abandoned area between work and my apartment.

There was no doubt about it. Something was in that alleyway. I couldn't see it, but every sense in my body was screaming at me. The increase in my breathing and the deafening thud of my heart rate sent a clear message: _get away from here. Right now._

I forced one foot forward by an inch, and a jolt of pure electricity shivered through me again, tingling behind my shoulder blades and up my scalp.

The instinct to flee was overwhelmed by something else, something that was tugging me toward the alley, into the darkness. Nearer to whatever was waiting there.

Like hell. There was nothing that could have convinced me to even _look_ in that direction. I stumbled forward, knees locking against movement, and when I felt the powerful feeling finally begin to fade, I ran.


	3. Agitato

**A/N:** Thank you for all the follows and favorites, and especially to those of you who've already left reviews! In honor of Halloween, I decided to post this chapter a day early. :)

* * *

 _The fine line between night and day_

 _Is drawn in warm, red ink._

* * *

I burst into the apartment, and whirled around to slam the deadbolt into place behind me. Then, I collapsed heavily against the locked door, clutching my left arm close to my chest as the bruise thudded with dull pain. The adrenaline burst that had powered me all the way back home was still shaking my entire body like a leaf. Bracing my feet against the floor, I kept myself from sliding down into a heap.

 _What was that?_

I hadn't actually _seen_ anything behind me, nor did I have any reason to believe whatever it was had followed me all the way back. For all I knew, I could have been running from nothing.

And, what was even stranger, I wasn't actually afraid. I hadn't felt in any true danger, although the warring instincts of my body had catapulted me into survival mode—almost as if whatever it was that had been watching me was my natural predator. I thought back to what Loke and Ari had been talking about; what if it _had_ been—

"Lucy?!"

I looked into Erza's face as she materialized before me. Her eyebrows pinched together in concern and confusion.

"Oh…hi!"

I planted my right palm on the door behind me and straightened up, feeling the adrenaline recede ever so slowly from my bloodstream.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, skeptically surveying my shaking knees and the arm that I kept locked around my waist.

"Of course! I just left early today because…they ran out of work for me."

Lying to Erza was never a very good idea, but she seemed too preoccupied to notice. Instead, she kept glancing toward the hallway in the direction of Levy's room, as if worried that her words might be overheard. Leaning in slightly, she said:

"I'm glad you came home when you did. Something's happened to Levy, and I didn't really want to leave her here alone."

For a few seconds, I couldn't put together my thoughts enough to answer. Was Levy sick? I suddenly remembered her shut door this morning—perhaps she had felt too unwell to go to work at the library.

Erza didn't bother waiting for my answer. She continued explaining in a low voice, and steered me by my shoulder into the middle of the living room.

"I arrived here about an hour ago, and I found her still in bed. She told me she hadn't felt well enough to get up all day, and then she showed me her arm—"

I had been stuck on mild annoyance that Erza had just barged into our place when none of us were supposed to be home, but I stiffened instantly when she mentioned Levy's arm. She shot me a glance.

"What's wrong?"

"Her arm," I said quietly. "Was there a bruise on the inside of her left elbow?"

"Yes, there was. Quite a large one, actually. Did she show it to you?"

"No, she didn't."

In explanation, I brought my left arm away from my body, and turned it palm up so Erza could see the deep mark on my own elbow. Her eyes widened, and she let go of my shoulder to gently twist my arm better towards the light.

"The exact same…" she muttered, half under her breath.

I was worried about Levy. If the same thing had happened to her, then it had apparently been much more severe than what I had gone through. But before I could go check on my friend, Levy's bedroom door opened from the inside and she poked her blue head out. She was just as pale as I was, and the dark shadows under her eyes curved deeply towards her cheekbones.

"Lu, you're home! Sorry, I've just been feeling weird all day."

Erza was still studying my arm intently as I answered:

"I know. I think the same thing has been happening to me."

Levy's eyes grew huge in her small face.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded, and Levy stepped out of the bedroom, a throw blanket wrapped around her body and secured with one thin hand. She walked close enough to see the bruise Erza was studying, and gave a short gasp. The blanket stayed draped around her shoulders as her fingers released it to trail over the identical mark on her own arm. I could see it was the same heavy bluish-black, vivid against her skin.

"Wow. What do you think it is?" she asked me, eyes fixed on my elbow.

I shook my head, at a loss. It was too coincidental that on the exact same day, both Levy and I had turned up with mystery bruises and other unexplainable symptoms. A thought struck me, and even though I didn't expect Levy to understand, I had to ask.

"Have you felt…weird today?"

She gazed at me like I was beyond psycho. I quickly amended:

"I mean, like someone has been watching you? It's…electric. That's the only way I can describe it."

Her mouth parted in obvious surprise, but before she could answer, Erza stopped prodding my arm and looked at both of us with what we tended to call her "serious face."

"I need to talk to Jellal about this."

I grabbed my arm back from her, instantly guarded.

"Not you _too_! Why does everyone think this has something to do with a vampire?"

"Because, Lucy, someone stole your blood. A _lot_ of it. Levy's, too."

My jaw dropped open.

"Our blood was _stolen_?"

She nodded slowly. Levy kept her wide-eyed stare, her face growing impossibly more pale, while I cast around for which of the million questions I should ask first.

"How could someone just waltz into the apartment and _steal_ our blood?" I sputtered, still convinced Erza was speaking insanity.

Her shoulders sagged, and she admitted:

"I really don't know."

"So that's why you're going to ask Jellal," stated Levy in a thin voice, sounding like she was trying to make sense of it herself.

I could finally see the connection. Stolen blood was highly suspicious— _if_ unheard of. Erza left us to use the telephone in the kitchen, and a few seconds later we heard her low voice on one side of a short, tense conversation. Before five minutes had passed, during which Levy and I exchanged a few concerned glances, she walked out to us again.

"I'm going to meet up with him somewhere quiet," she explained. "We don't really want to involve the nest or the police just yet, not when there's this much speculation."

Levy and I watched her go, the suddenness of all the events barely registering with either of us yet.

If our blood was stolen, and it was somehow linked back to the vampire nest in Magnolia, it could be the first spark of an all-out war.

The tentative peace between the city government and the nest was kept in place by several strict arrangements. First, the nest was closely supervised by the Magnolia police at all times. Second, vampires belonging to the nest would render aid to the police force in capturing and dealing with lawless vampires who stalked the streets, preying on humans. Third, and most importantly of all, the nest vampires were never, _ever_ to drink the blood of a human. It was built into their very biology to suck the body dry once blood first passed their lips. If any vampire tasted someone's blood, that human was as good as dead.

If the nest respected these rules, Magnolia allowed them to stay, and didn't take measures to scatter the nest itself. From what Erza had told me about the way vampires functioned, it was incredibly important for them to belong to a community. The longer a vampire was isolated from others, a chemical imbalance called "bloodrogue" was triggered. The vampire would be driven to the brink of madness by the faintest scent of its prey, becoming a beast motivated by the sole instinct to drink. The rules set forth by Magnolia law allowed the vampires to congregate, to stave off becoming bloodrogue, and to use their advanced abilities to keep the city safe. Located at the edge of the city, the nest gave them easy access to the wilderness—and the wildlife—beyond Magnolia's city limits, which prevented them from being tempted by the rush of urban life at the city's metropolitan center.

In my experience, vampires existed as shadows on the edges of the sunlit world. I had never seen one. They were never glimpsed in the daytime, even by people like Jellal Fernandes, who, as official liaison, was tasked with making contact and forming relationships with the more cooperative members of the nest. Even at nighttime, they kept to the edges of the city, only venturing into its more packed areas when a bloodrogue was loose on the town. Most of us normal humans never even thought of them, and when we did, it was with vague apprehension—and often revulsion. They belonged only to the nighttime, and even though the Magnolia nest was one of the largest and most peaceful in recorded history, most people couldn't move past the whole "bloodsucking" thing. Luckily for me, it had never been an up-close-and-personal issue.

That is, until now.

When Juvia arrived home, she found Levy and me huddled silently on the couch, still trying to figure out what was going on and wondering what Erza was discovering. We explained to her quickly what had happened, and she proved to be exactly as confused as we expected. After her initial barrage of startled questions, she remained standing in front of us, a pronounced frown drawing her features together as she began to comprehend all the implications.

"Wait," Levy tapped a finger against her lower lip as she considered something new. "Juvia, why wasn't your blood stolen too? Both Lucy and I have these bruises now, and we've been feeling strange all day. Are you sure yours wasn't taken as well?"

I shot Juvia a look, and watched her face take on a brilliant blush. Levy still didn't know she had never come back to the apartment the night before. I smirked knowingly, and Juvia directed a withering glance at me.

"It's not like _that_! Juvia and Gray-sama just made very interesting conversation for most of the night—that's all."

At Levy's look of confusion, I explained:

"Juvia wasn't here last night, so whoever broke in and took our blood didn't have the chance to get hers."

"Oh!"

Levy's face lit up in understanding, and she turned to look at Juvia, who was somehow growing impossibly redder.

"Conversation, huh?"

"Juvia wouldn't lie!"

I was inclined to agree. When it came to "Gray-sama," Juvia would definitely not hold back from telling us each and every spectacular detail enshrined in her memory. I brought the conversation back to the mystery in front of us by asking a question no one would be able to answer.

"Why would someone _steal_ blood?"

Silence blanketed the room. It would have been a different story if Levy and I had been drained entirely—still really bad, but definitely less confusing. It would mean a deranged, thirsty vampire had broken into our supposedly safe apartment, but so far none of the evidence pointed to this being the work of a bloodrogue.

"Maybe Jellal will know," Levy suggested. I hoped she was right.

Parts of today began to make more sense: the dizzying faintness upon waking up, the dark bruise in a place where veins were most prominent. It dawned on me that whatever had stolen our blood probably administered some sort of sedative to prevent us from waking. _That_ might explain some of the weirdness Levy and I had been feeling today. But it still didn't explain the overwhelming sense of being watched, which was still a disquieting fluke.

I remembered Levy's reaction when I asked her if she felt as if someone was observing her, and her surprised gasp. When Juvia went back to her room after we explained as much as we could to her, I turned to Levy and asked quietly:

"About earlier—it seemed as if you felt the same thing I did. You _could_ feel that something had its eyes on you."

She inhaled shakily, as if the memory alone were pumping adrenaline through her veins.

"Yes. I was asleep for most of the day, but at one point I woke up, and my heart was racing. Every hair on the back of my neck and my arms was standing up. It felt like I had been standing right next to where lightning struck."

She pulled the blanket more tightly around herself and looked down at her knees. Then, she continued, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"But…it didn't feel like I was in danger. It was like I was being pulled somewhere, like there was a string attached to something in my chest tugging me towards whatever the source was, and every other instinct in my body was telling me I needed to get away, _fast_. It was really, really strange."

"What did you do?" I asked, my curiosity trumping restraint. One thing was certain—she obviously hadn't booked it like I had.

"It was like I was being torn in opposite directions. All I was capable of doing was sitting there, wondering if it would just go away. Finally…it did."

Her sentence ended on a sigh. She sounded almost disappointed. Then she looked at me sharply.

"When did _you_ feel it?"

I told her about the dark alleyway, and her eyes grew wide. I didn't mention that I had been moments away from walking into the darkness by myself to face whatever was inside, but that my common sense had—at the last second—steered me in the opposite direction.

The phone in the kitchen split the silence, and we both flinched. Hoping it was Erza, I hurried into the kitchen to snatch up the phone.

"Hello?"

Erza's voice answered me:

 _*I just finished talking with Jellal. He wants to come over and take a look at what happened to you and Levy, and talk to you firsthand.*_

"O-okay. Right now?"

 _*Yes. This is very important!*_

"Got it. Please thank him for us."

 _*I will. See you in a little bit, Lucy.*_

Going back to the living room, I alerted Levy to the situation and she went into her bedroom to throw on some real clothes. I remained sitting on the couch to wait for her, picking the skin next to my fingernails—a nervous habit I had never been able to grow out of. Once Erza and Jellal got here, maybe I could find some answers. They were both too knowledgeable to still be in the dark about what was going on. The shadow from the night before flickered through my memory, sending a residual chill across my skin. In retrospect, I had probably actually seen the blood thief. I couldn't help thinking that maybe if I had been a little more proactive, this entire ordeal wouldn't be happening. At any rate, it was useless to worry about something like that now.

The apartment was eerily quiet, and I began to wish Levy would hurry up and change, or even that Juvia would come out here to keep me company, even if it was just to tell me all about how perfect Gray-sama was. Instead, the unnatural silence encapsulated me in a bubble of pressure, at any moment ready to snap.

Something creaked in the kitchen, and my scalp prickled with the electricity that was growing all too familiar. Ordinarily, I would think it was the apartment building settling, or some pest behind the walls, but somehow I knew it was neither of those things. I sucked air into my dry throat, and tried to form words.

"Hello?"

It came out of my mouth in a barely audible rasp.

The intruder in my kitchen walked right into the living room, where I still sat clutching my knees protectively to my chest.

"Hi," he answered.


	4. Subito

**A/N:** I am so weak. I only have a few more chapters pre-written, but I just couldn't wait all the way until next Sunday. Enjoy the early chapter, friends, and you can thank my lack of self-control for this.

* * *

 _All voices clamor but one—_

 _A clear, fierce song._

* * *

Of all the housebreakers I was expecting, it was safe to say none of them had pink hair.

To my surprise, I didn't scream. Nor did I ask him, as would be reasonable, why the hell he was in my apartment, or how he had even gotten into it in the first place. We looked at each other, neither saying a word.

He was tall, and under that spiky mop of pink hair his eyes glittered dark. I was sure I had never seen him before, because there was no way I could forget a face like that. To say it was "handsome" was perhaps inaccurate, but, then again, my objective assessment was compromised. Magnetic, perhaps. Dangerous, definitely. And something told me it wasn't just his sudden appearance in my living room that had my senses reeling.

"My roommates are right down the hall," I heard my unnervingly calm and composed voice say. I nearly laughed at myself. If this guy could scale a multi-story building and slip silently through a window on the sixth floor without even breaking a sweat, then it was safe to say he could probably overpower, or at least escape from, three unsuspecting, untrained females.

He didn't answer my warning, but instead continued to look at me, renewing the cascade of electric tingles down my spine. I couldn't seem to move as long as those large, dark eyes were fixed on my face. I decided to try speaking again.

"Why are you here?"

It _was_ a valid question. This time I got an answer, and was surprised by the confusion in the low, oddly distinctive voice that answered me.

"I'm not really sure."

His eyes flickered away from mine to sweep around the room, and when they landed on my face again seconds later, a fresh wave of electric energy swam up between my ribs to settle deep in my chest. It was much more powerful than the one I'd felt earlier, and I gasped. Up until now, his expression had been mostly neutral, with just a touch of surprise when he first saw me (although why _he_ should be surprised, when it was _my_ apartment he broke into, was beyond me). When he heard my gasp, triggered by the strange sensation, his pink eyebrows lifted in shock.

"Wow," he uttered quietly.

The tingling subsided into a vaguely distracting buzz beneath my breastbone, and I was finally able to question his unsatisfactory response.

"You're…'not sure' why you broke into my apartment through the kitchen window?"

He nodded, slowly, and stepped forward to pick up one of my books on the low coffee table.

"Hey!"

I stood up quickly, affronted by his familiarity with my possessions, and he froze with the book in his long fingers.

"You can't just wander into someone else's living space and start touching everything! It's rude!"

He didn't put the book down, but tilted his head to the side as if in mild curiosity.

"Are you angry because I entered without asking, or because I touched something without asking?"

I tripped over his bizarre logic, and a few sputtering syllables flew out of my mouth. Recovering, I tried to sound as threatening as my uncertain voice allowed.

"Both! And if you don't leave now, you're going to regret it."

I began inching towards my purse, which rested at the other end of the coffee table, and currently held my pepper spray. My warning appeared to be totally ineffectual, because he angled his body away from me and began thumbing through the book as if he was completely at home in my living room. I had just started to reach for the strap of my bag when his voice reached my ears:

"You don't have to do that."

He was turned completely away from me, so there was no way he could have seen what I was doing.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

I paused, taken aback—not just because he was apparently trying to reassure me, but also because I was a little tempted to believe him. But he _had_ broken into my apartment, and risked my security deposit. That kind of behavior could not be tolerated. My cheeks started to burn with real anger, mostly because any respectable housebreaker would have hit me over the head by now and left with all the valuables. This intruder wasn't following the rules.

"You know, that's _really_ hard to believe when you're a perfect stranger who just climbed in through my kitchen window! And it's even _less_ believable on the same day someone—"

I screeched to a halt as realization burst upon me. The pink-haired housebreaker was the person who had stolen my blood. He _had_ to be.

He must have somehow sensed the sharp upswing in my tension, because his chin jerked sharply over his shoulder, causing the ends of the long white scarf he wore to twitch with the movement.

"What's wrong?"

I filled my lungs, and was about to scream for Juvia and Levy when he abruptly pivoted on one foot and focused his eyes on the apartment door. Following his gaze, I started to hear the faint sound of two sets of footsteps approaching the entrance doorway.

Erza and Jellal. Relief washed over me. They'd know what to do.

My eyes flashed back to where the housebreaker had been standing, but was only greeted with an empty room. Dismayed, I bolted to the kitchen, where I found him lifting his tall body agilely through the window. Those dark eyes snapped up to mine again, and I couldn't control the familiar shiver that prickled my skin.

"Goodbye, Lucy."

Before half a second passed, I was left staring at the empty black sky outside the window.

Five minutes later, I stood in the living room finishing my explanation of what had just happened to an open-mouthed Erza and Jellal—both of whom had _also_ ended up in my apartment without being invited. Given that it was Erza, I expected as much.

Her companion, Jellal Fernandes, was one of the foremost assets of the Magnolia police force and an expert in relations between the government and the nest. He was barely three years older than I was, and had a long history with Erza. According to her, the two had known each other since childhood, and while both staunchly resisted any suggestions that they were more than friends, anyone with two eyeballs and a functioning brain could see past those fervent denials.

Jellal's distinctive appearance, most notably his midnight blue hair and the unique tattoos above and below his right eye, was usually masked by a hooded cloak. Once in my apartment, he had pulled the hood back, which allowed his hair to fall forward over his serious, focused eyes. He listened closely as I explained what had just happened, while Erza seemed more intent on finding the mysterious person and making him talk the hard way.

Levy walked out of her bedroom in time to catch the tail end of my story, and expressed open amazement once she heard that someone had actually broken into the apartment within the brief period of time she had left me alone.

Erza stalked into the kitchen to survey the open window, and came back livid.

"Who could it have been but the thief?" she growled, with such ferocity that I actually backed away.

Jellal appeared to finish his silent consideration, and turned towards me with his fingers laced together.

"It seems highly unlikely that the person who stole your blood would come back the very same day, Lucy. Especially since he didn't seem at all bothered that you were home, and that you managed to get a good look at him. Speaking of which, would you mind describing the intruder?"

That was easy.

"He was tall, and he wore a vest and loose pants, and a long white scarf. He also had really dark eyes—almost black. And he had…pink hair."

Jellal's teeth clicked together as his jaw clenched. His eyes shot sideways to Erza, who looked confused at his sudden reaction. Without speaking, Jellal brushed past us to walk down the short hallway and into my bedroom at the far end. I followed after him, trailing both Erza and Levy behind me.

"Can you tell us what's going on before you just barge into my room?" I asked in irritation. It's like privacy didn't exist with these people.

Juvia poked her head out of her room with a question on her face as the rest of us silently watched Jellal open my window, craning his neck to look at the exterior walls of the apartment building. After a few seconds, he brought his head back inside, and saw the rest of us looking at him, obviously waiting for an explanation.

"There's a clear boot print," he said. "Luckily, it's too small to belong to the person Lucy described."

"Lucky?!" I exclaimed disbelievingly. "Doesn't that just mean that _two_ different people broke in here instead of just one? How is that lucky?"

Jellal turned towards me and answered:

"Because the pink-haired man you've described is a vampire, named Natsu Dragneel. I've worked with him several times in the past."

I heard Levy's squeak of alarm, along with Erza's sharp intake of breath. Juvia had followed us into my room, and her eyes went wide with disbelief.

Incredibly, I was the only person who didn't seem surprised. It hadn't actually occurred to me that he—Natsu—was a vampire, but it made a roundabout sort of sense. He had effortlessly scaled a building, and his senses were obviously enhanced, since he had heard Erza and Jellal approaching before my ears picked up the noise. It then occurred to me that he had sensed the alteration in my body chemistry when my heart rate picked up, which was why he had asked me what was wrong. I could have kicked myself for not seeing it at once.

"Oh, of course," I said out loud, and the rest of them turned to look at me like I'd grown a second head. It was then that I realized I was supposed to be horror-stricken that a vampire had quite recently made himself at home in my living room.

"I'm just saying, in retrospect, it makes way more sense than if he was a regular human," I explained, lifting my hands appealingly.

Jellal's slow nod of acknowledgment didn't do much to counterbalance his worried expression as he responded:

"Natsu wasn't the one who came into the apartment last night, but that doesn't explain why he would come here now. I'm afraid that he and whoever stole blood from you and Levy might still be connected."

"It sounds like the only way we'll find out is by going to the nest," muttered Erza.

After a brief discussion, it was decided that Jellal and Erza—particularly the former—would focus on discovering what the Magnolia nest knew about the stolen blood. Erza, when she wasn't working on that, would make sure there were no more intrusions into our apartment. However, when Jellal suggested that perhaps Levy and I would be safer if we stayed inside until the affair was sorted out, both of us balked.

"We'll be fine in broad daylight," I contended, cringing at the prospect of being imprisoned until the blood thief was caught.

"And we both work in fairly public places," Levy eagerly pointed out. "There's no reason we can't have a normal day, and just be more cautious at nighttime."

We eventually overcame the opposition, but promised to be extremely careful about whom we interacted with, and to be inside the apartment well before sunset. After a few more minutes' conversation with Erza, who refused to leave the apartment just in case anyone else unexpected appeared, Jellal took his leave.

"Thank you so much," I said to him as he drew his signature hood up over his head.

"It's no trouble," he assured me, brushing off the thanks. His gaze wandered briefly over to where Erza was checking the locks on the window. The blush that covered his face when I caught him staring was visible even from under the shadow of his hood. Clearing his throat, he muttered a farewell and hurried out the door. Erza looked over to see me chuckling silently.

"Is something funny?" she asked curiously.

"Nothing you'd laugh at," I responded, winking. She turned rapidly back to the window, but not before her own cheeks turned a spectacular pink that clashed violently with the color of her hair.

I found Levy sitting on my bed, looking as if she was racking her brain for some long-lost information. When I walked in, she came out of her deep concentration and scooted over so I could sit next to her.

"This whole thing is bothering me," she mused, drawing her knees up to rest her chin on them.

I sat next to her and nodded in agreement, feeling tension settle between my shoulders at having the empty black window behind me.

"Me too. I had no idea this was so serious."

She shook her head.

"No, not just that. I don't know why, but this all seems so familiar. I think I've read about something like this somewhere, but I don't remember where, or even really what it was about."

I stared.

"You've read about people getting their blood stolen and then being stalked by vampires with no respect for legal property or personal space?"

She smiled faintly, but still looked frustrated.

"No, not so specific as that. It must have been just a passing reference, but something about this whole thing keeps needling me. That's part of the reason I need to go back to the library tomorrow—to do my research and see if I can find out what it might be."

I couldn't remember hearing of anything like this before. On the rare occasion that a bloodrogue got into the city and killed, the body was always discovered the same way—lifeless and drained, with identical puncture wounds from lethally sharp fangs. But I trusted Levy's brain more than the oldest encyclopedia, so I would help her however she needed in order to find out what was going on.

After things settled down in the apartment—namely, Erza made herself at home on the couch and declared she was staying for the night—Levy and Juvia returned to their rooms and I was left alone again.

The events of the day had caught up with me, and exhaustion hit me like a train. There would be no writing for me tonight, but with all that was swirling around in my brain, I wasn't sure I would be able to make heads or tails of my novel. I collapsed on the bed, still fully clothed, and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The last shimmering image behind my eyelids were Natsu's onyx eyes, crystal clear as when I had stared into them earlier.


	5. Mordent

_Myths lie buried at the crossroads_

 _Between magic and science._

* * *

The first thing I did after opening my eyes the next morning was check the skin on the inside of my left elbow. I was reasonably certain there wouldn't be a repeat of the night before, but it couldn't hurt to make sure. To my relief, the black and blue mark that had spread across inches of my skin was already fading and shrinking. Everything that had happened yesterday was beginning to feel like a bizarre dream—until Erza threw open the door and nearly skewered my shrieking alarm clock with a pencil.

"What are you doing?!" I rasped in alarm, voice still hoarse with sleep. Erza's hair was a mess, and she had obviously just gotten up seconds earlier.

"I thought…maybe, an intruder…" she gestured at the clock, which was still somehow resiliently beeping.

I groaned, wrenching the sharpened pencil out of the gears of the clock, and heard Erza stumble off towards the kitchen. Even the formidable woman herself was half-alive before she had her coffee.

After making a mental note to buy a new alarm clock, I began to get up and prepare for work. I ran through the tasks I needed to get done at the office, and cringed internally at how much awaited me, thanks to my lack of productivity the day before. On my way to the bathroom, I ran into Juvia, who was just leaving it, humming happily to herself at the prospect of more time with Gray.

Everything seemed so normal. It was very easy for me to believe that the entire last 24 hours had never even happened.

The day continued to prove disarmingly ordinary on my walk to work, and when I arrived at the office a new stack of papers awaited my red pen. Loke and Ari greeted me with not a single mention of the bruise on my arm, although I would have bet half my rent money that Cap had had a word with them after I left the day before.

I was able to work steadily until lunchtime. A few people walked into the room to talk to either Ari or Loke: Aquarius' assistant Gemma, and her twin sister Minnie, came in to chat with Ari for five minutes or so, and "Toro," who headed the sports and athletic news (not that _L &L_ dealt largely in that sort of writing), stopped by to exchange bro-talk with Loke. I was suspicious that his main reason was to cast lecherous glances at Ari and me, but between these brief interludes, I was able to catch up on most of what I had left unfinished the day before.

A few minutes before noon, the phone rang at Ari's desk, and she picked it up to answer the caller in her soft, gentle voice. Moments later, I was surprised when she slid the device to the side of her desk and said:

"Lucy, the call's for you."

I raised an eyebrow and took the phone from her, stretching the cord nearly to the limit as I lifted it to my ear.

"This is Lucy Heartfilia speaking."

Levy's voice came over the line:

"Lu! Can you come to the library during your lunch hour? I really need to talk to you about something, and I don't want to do it over the phone."

I looked at the clock, which told me I had about five minutes before my break started. The library was farther away than the apartment, but not by much. Walking there wouldn't take me more than ten minutes. Plus, I was now curious to learn whatever Levy had to tell me about her research. Obviously she didn't feel comfortable calling me to talk about it, so she must have found _something_ interesting.

"Sure. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes," I answered, waiting for her goodbye and the click before hanging up.

I handed the phone back to Ari, and in a few short minutes I had left the office and was carrying my lunch in the direction of the Magnolia public library. Keeping my eye on the shadowy back alleys and secluded street corners, I was on constant alert for the slightest sign of anything strange. However, nothing manifested, and I felt a little silly for worrying so much, especially as I approached the busier streets of midtown and walked up to the majestic library façade.

I entered the brightly lit lobby, appreciating the stately calm that always seemed to accompany the well-organized stacks. The high-ceilinged room had long windows, which reached all the way from floor to ceiling, and let in so much light that the shadows were pulled out of the long rows of research texts and archaic folios. The shorter aisles were busier, with suburban mothers browsing the children's section, glancing every now and then at the cheap novels a few shelves over.

From the far end of one of the dimmer rows, I saw Levy sliding a heavy tome back into place and waved at her. I couldn't catch her attention by shouting—this _was_ a library, after all. She caught sight of me, and hurried in my direction as I shifted my weight awkwardly from one foot to another. One of the older librarians was eyeing my lunch sack with a stern eye, and I didn't want to be kicked out of the building for the threat my meagre meal presented to the fragile stacks.

"Come this way, Lucy," Levy whispered, motioning me towards a nondescript door on the side wall nearest us. Once we were through, it appeared to be some sort of break room for employees. There was a small table with a couple chairs, some worn couches, and even _more_ bookshelves, as if the ones in the main library weren't enough.

"What did you find out?" I asked, getting straight to the point. The night before, it hadn't really occurred to me that Levy would actually find anything relevant on what was going on with us. Stolen blood just wasn't something that tended to happen often—or ever. However, her phone call had intrigued me, and her face, at the moment, was very serious. We both sat down, and she folded her hands in front of her on the table. My curiosity soon began to overpower my patience, but she started talking before I could bombard her with questions.

"I think I found the reference I was remembering, but there's no way to find out if it's related to what has happened to us. At least…not yet."

The apprehension in her voice frayed my nerves. I silently begged her to keep explaining, and after taking a deep breath, she obliged.

"In this really old book about vampire-human conflicts in the past, there's a reference to something called 'bloodsong'. There's limited information on whatever it is, and I was only able to find a mention of it in that one book. But, apparently, bloodsong is historically considered to be an ancient spell that powerfully binds a single human and vampire together."

I stared at her, unable to speak. Levy kept explaining, her voice quiet, yet oddly steady:

"I read that bloodsong was thought to be a very potent magic, which is why it was actually under taboo. The book was really vague on the details, but it _did_ make sure to point out that if the human and vampire are prevented from forming the necessary bond, disaster is sure to strike."

I gulped, and managed to ask:

"What exactly do you mean by 'bond'?"

She paused, then said even more quietly:

"Either the vampire has to transform the human into one of _them_ , or drain them entirely."

I took a steadying breath, and tried to connect with my center of logic. As much as the theory of "bloodsong" eerily fit the description of the magnetic pull I had felt towards Natsu, there were still some parts of Levy's story that weren't clear to me.

"I don't understand. Bloodrogues have drained humans before and no one ever started talking about this weird 'bond' you mentioned."

Levy laughed sharply, a harsh sound that I wasn't used to hearing from her.

"I'm pretty sure that's because there's no such thing as a 'non-fatal' vampire attack. Bloodsong is unique because it requires a vampire to drink a human's blood without draining that person—at first, that is. Which is why _stealing_ someone's blood, for example, might be an excellent way to trigger it without causing that person to die."

My eyes widened as I realized she was right.

"What do you think this 'disaster' is that happens if bloodsong can't be completed?"

She shook her head, a frustrated look crossing her face.

"I have no idea. It could just be superstition. It _is_ a really old book. The whole thing could just be a bunch of nonsense cobbled together from a few vampire killings that ended up generating a fantastical urban myth."

Levy sounded too much like she was trying to convince herself nothing she had read about bloodsong could relate to what was happening to us. I could understand that much. It was entirely possible that the myth was just that—a myth. Still, I knew her too well to not see there was something else disturbing she wasn't letting on. The way her eyes flashed towards the door every now and then made me think she expected someone to walk in, and she kept rubbing the inside of her left elbow, where the bruise was fading. Then it hit me.

"You've seen the vampire—the one who is following you!"

She stiffened, whipping her head around to make sure we were still alone in the break room. The four walls were windowless—there was no way anyone else could hear our conversation. Still, her edginess was beginning to rub off on me, and I fought the urge to press my back into a corner. Stupid lizard brain, telling me that fight and flight were the only options.

Levy dropped her voice further, obviously reluctant to answer my speculation with the truth.

"Yes. I-I think so. I'm not sure."

I remembered how Natsu had forced his way into my apartment, not caring whether anyone saw him or what their reactions would be. Obviously, the vampire tailing Levy was operating with more subtlety.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?" I asked.

She stopped rubbing the mark on her arm, and wound her fingers together in her lap nervously.

"I just saw eyes. Red eyes, in the deepest part of the archives when I went to look for the book about bloodsong. And I felt that sensation again, like electricity shooting down my spine."

A chill rippled over the back of my neck, and I wondered how Levy could possibly sound so calm. It had been a long time since anything I heard had creeped me out so much.

"What did you do?"

"Well, obviously I got out, since I'm here now," she answered with a small grin. "But I don't think whatever it was would have hurt me, even if I had stayed. Does that sound crazy?"

 _"I'm not going hurt you."_

Natsu's words rang in my ears, clear as a bell, and I shook my head.

"It doesn't sound crazy to me at all."

Then again, maybe I was the wrong person to ask.

Levy walked me out of the library, casting a quick glance over her shoulder when we reached the main door. Now that I knew what—or rather _who—_ she was looking for, I felt as if I shouldn't leave her alone.

"I'll stay in the main area," she assured me, noticing my anxiety. "See? Lots of people are still around."

She tilted her head pointedly towards the heavyset security guard standing a few yards away at the door, and I lifted an eyebrow. One pudgy guard probably wouldn't be much of a match for a vampire. Levy shooed me towards the exit, her tone growing exasperated:

"Lu, you should worry about yourself, and less about me. I'll be fine."

I nearly asked her if she was actually going to go _looking_ for the owner of those red eyes, but before I did, another question occurred to me.

"Do you think we should talk to Jellal or Erza about bloodsong?"

Levy pursed her lips before answering:

"I think they might dismiss it as a myth, or they may have already considered it and found something else that makes more sense. Jellal can get information from the nest itself, while I had to go searching for whatever I could find in a dusty old book."

I gave a small grin.

"So what I'm hearing is…we _don't_ tell them?"

She nodded conspiratorially, waving at the guard who was now giving us a pointed look for standing around and blocking the exit.

"Still, please be safe, Lucy!" she called after me, and I waved silently back. The day, apart from my detour to the library and Levy's revelation, had been reassuringly boring. I didn't anticipate any excitement on my walk back to work.

Of course, my complacent attitude backfired spectacularly when I was only a block away from the office.

Feeling the telltale shiver of energy shoot up my spine, I whirled around and searched for the source of the strangeness. I was in one of the narrower streets of the city, but there weren't any shadowy alleyways for anyone to hide in this time. Trying to ignore the electric charge as it teased my nerve endings, I gathered my courage and called out in my most intimidating voice:

"Who's there? Show yourself!"

There was a beat of dead silence, then something large and dark dropped silently from the third story window ledge of the building to my right. Before I had time to react, I recognized the telltale shock of pink hair belonging to the person who landed mere feet away from where I stood.


	6. Tenuto

**A/N:** Well, this is it. The last of my pre-written chapters! Updates are probably gonna be more sporadic from now on, but I'll try not to leave you guys hanging for more than a couple weeks. :)

* * *

 _Taste the burnt air on your lips, and_

 _Breathe before the plunge._

* * *

"You again."

I wasn't honestly expecting anyone else. Who, other than him, would be following me around?

Once Natsu stepped out from the shadow of the building, I was able to get a much better look at him than when he had climbed into my apartment. Even when he was standing in the middle of my living room, I was too distracted by his sudden appearance to really observe him. Since I had never seen a vampire before, I was actually quite curious to see how they were different from humans. There was such a mythology built up around them, shrouding all information in urban legends and rumors, that I had never really known what to think. Even Jellal, whose work brought him into contact with members of the nest, was cagey with any information he let slip.

From what I could tell by looking closely at Natsu, vampires looked a whole lot like humans. The protruding fangs, icy, death-like pallor, and skeletal features were, it seemed, remnants of cheap superstition. Still, there was something markedly predatory about the way he moved when straightening his body after dropping from the building—each movement effortless with fluid precision. In the first few steps he took towards me, there was a sense of enormous tension ready to release in an instant. It was no wonder his kind were at the top of the food chain.

My body's instant—and disconcerting—response to such a threat was to pump gallons of adrenaline through my bloodstream, making my hands shake so badly I could hardly lift them. Witnessing my tremors, Natsu's posture stiffened and his large black eyes narrowed.

"Is something wrong?"

I hardly knew what to answer. It was too distracting trying to battle into submission the part of me that wanted to inch towards him, and the part that wanted to charge headlong in the other direction. He took another experimental step towards me and my arms shot up in a pitiful attempt to ward him off. There was confusion, but no apparent threat in his face.

"Lucy, I meant what I said. I'm not going to hurt you."

He spoke slowly and carefully, as if trying to reassure me there was no need to be on edge. A seed of warmth dropped into my stomach when my name came from his lips. The warmth spread to the tips of my fingers, gradually slowing the shaking. He stayed motionless right where he was, which was still several feet away from where I stood.

"Why are you following me?" I finally asked, pleased to hear that my voice was steady.

"I have to," he replied instantly, a mechanically conditioned response.

"Are you… _hunting_ me?"

He looked incredibly offended.

"Of course not! That's against the law!"

He wasn't wrong. But that didn't mean it had never happened before. Trying a different tack, and before I fully knew what was coming out of my mouth, I asked him:

"Can you tell me about bloodsong?"

The affronted expression on Natsu's face slid into mute confusion. I couldn't have explained my expectations, but I wasn't prepared for a vampire to display his emotions so openly.

"Bloodsong? I don't think I've ever heard of it."

My hopes sank. I thought I might finally be able to learn what was happening to me, why my blood had been stolen—and a real live vampire _really_ seemed like the perfect source for information. Then, something else occurred to me—something that made my jaw flap open and stare open-mouthed at Natsu.

"You're out in the daylight?!"

The confusion on his face deepened.

"Well, yeah. _You're_ out here, right?"

"Of course, but—"

"So why is it weird for me to be here too?"

His innocent act was really starting to confound me. It was just like when he broke into my apartment; he was managing to say just the right thing to throw me for a loop. I breathed in, deeply, and attempted to make it simple for him.

"Well, typically, vampires don't just walk around in broad daylight. It's unheard of. It's practically unreal that we're standing here, having this conversation right now."

He didn't seem to process my reasoning, but he looked like he was honestly trying to understand. As his lips pursed in concentration, I noticed how full they were, what an interesting contrast against the sharpness of his nose and chin. He really did have a fascinating face—and analyzing it wasn't helping my focus at all.

Natsu returned his full attention to me after apparently coming to terms with my explanation. His face split in a broad grin, and I tried not to look startled at the visible array of pointed teeth, dominated by significantly longer canines—quite worthy of being called fangs. Up until now, he was so far removed from everything I thought of as "vampire," that I had almost forgotten he possessed their most lethal quality.

"It's most important that I stay near you, so it doesn't really matter what time of day it is," he answered confidently.

I was almost ready to scream with frustration. Did he not understand how flat-out _weird_ he was?

"But _why?!_ " I groaned, close to forgetting he was a deadly hunter, and barely stopping myself from taking the front of his vest and shaking some logic out of him.

" _Why_ does it matter that you stay near me?"

His grin, along with those distracting fangs, disappeared again, and the lost look I had seen in my apartment returned. With it, he looked much younger, and disarmingly human.

"I don't know."

I brought both hands to my cheeks, shaking my head in nonplussed silence. My blood had been stolen, a pink-haired vampire with memory issues was dogging my steps, my best friend was being stalked by a red-eyed monster in the library, and on top of that, I was now nearly ten minutes late for work.

"I need to get back," I muttered, desperate to return to an environment where I was in control, where I understood all the rules.

"I'll come with you!" Natsu said cheerfully. I wondered how many times this vampire was going to make me question both his sanity and my own.

"Am I going to have to explain to you why that can't happen?" I articulated slowly, hoping he would at least catch the irritation in my tone.

He raised an incredulous eyebrow and showed off those pointed teeth again.

"Do you have a way to stop me?"

If this were a normal conversation between two humans, I would have thought he was teasing me. However, since none of our interactions could be qualified as "normal," I didn't know _what_ to think. I settled for silently walking past him, towards a location where things made sense. I didn't hear his footsteps behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder I saw that he had already vanished. It was too much to hope that he had taken me seriously and left for good. Sure enough, when I passed into a wider street, I saw a distinctive flash of pink at the corner of my eye. Quickening my steps, I reasoned that the sooner I got inside, the less risk of another encounter with the strange, oddly naïve vampire who seemed determined to keep me in his sights.

When I walked into the office, scurrying past Aquarius' door so she wouldn't take my head off for my tardiness, I tried to act as though I had had a pleasantly mundane lunch break with a friend.

"Did something happen?" Loke asked me when I walked in, and my eyes widened before I realized he was simply curious as to why I was so late.

"I just lost track of time," I said, flashing a smile in his direction and hoping he would leave it alone. Of course, that didn't happen.

" _You_ lost track of time? Lucy, you've never been even thirty seconds late to work since you started here. Ari and I thought you might have actually been kidnapped."

Ari shook her head at him, turning to smile at me, and I shrugged in what I hoped was passable nonchalance. If either of them knew what had really happened, they would be speechless.

"There's a first for everything," I remarked in a tone of finality, and plunged into the next manuscript on my desk to signify that the topic was at an end. This time I didn't have to ward off any more suspicion.

As the day continued and I tried to focus on my work, my eyes kept sliding over to the small window in the office, expecting to see a fanged smile and the vampire it was attached to. This might have had something to do with the twinges of electricity that kept popping between my shoulder blades. I was familiar enough with the odd sensation to know that the source wasn't too far away. Natsu's presence and the electric energy dancing underneath my skin were undeniably correlated.

"How's it coming, Lucy?" Cap's voice asked right behind me, an hour before closing. I jumped halfway out of my seat. "On edge" just didn't seem to adequately describe my state of mind. Looking down at the hefty pile of pages making my desk creak under its weight, I felt my shoulders slump in dejection.

"I'll have to take some of this home."

There was no way I was catching up on my work before the end of the hour—not with all of my lapses in concentration. Cap made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, adjusting the sunglasses that were starting to slide down his nose. He took the discouragingly small stack of drafts I handed him and returned to his office without a word.

The clock hand kept ticking past the wasted seconds, and all the tense muscles in my body started to ache. It was really a matter of waiting, and trying to appear busy, until the other two started packing their things to go. As casually as I could, I slid my belongings and the remaining pile of papers into my shoulder bag, making sure everything important was in its proper place.

Ari tugged on my sleeve—I had worn one that went past my elbows today to hide the still-shrinking bruise—and asked if I wanted to meet her after work with another friend for drinks. I smiled, but refused, thinking with relief that I wouldn't have to come in to the office tomorrow. Behind locked, hopefully vampire-proof doors would be the safest place for me over the weekend.

Nevertheless, I still had the walk back.

As I finished putting everything in my bag, I weighed the possibility of calling Erza and having her meet me at the office. I knew she would be here in an instant without a second thought, but something about having a bodyguard didn't sit well with me. Besides, a small, nagging voice told me that if Natsu wanted me dead, it would have already happened.

Banking on this assumption, I walked outside in the fair assurance that nothing with fangs and unquenchable bloodthirst would leap on me during the walk home. The ever-present tingling had abated greatly, but never totally dissipated. When I walked outside, I expected the awareness to spike again, but there seemed to be no difference—or maybe I was just getting used to the electric currents swirling through my body. Satisfied that nothing was about to jump at me, I started walking quickly back towards the apartment, not pausing to look any direction except forward.

Passing the alleyway where I had first felt the signature thrill heralding Natsu's presence, I realized that he must have been following me at least since then. Now, however, the low hum in my veins stayed steady, so the alleyway was safe and empty. At least, except for…

My footsteps slowed. The deep shadows between the tall buildings couldn't hide the glow of two very bright yellow eyes close to the ground. I stopped walking entirely, and stared back at the eyes, wondering if some animal was rummaging through the dumpster near the opening of the alley. Then, the yellow eyes moved towards me. A black form, deeper than the shadows surrounding it, flowed from behind the dumpster and crept along the ground in my direction.

The chill that zipped up my scalp was totally unrelated to anything vampiric. It was pure, terrifying instinct. With feet glued to the pavement, I couldn't tear my gaze away from the poisonously yellow eyes, which were definitely closing in on my location.

Before I could make myself move, something large whipped past me, fluttering my hair in its wake. Even before I saw the spikes of pink hair, the wave of electricity sweeping over me told me who had just arrived. The next thing I knew, I was pressed up against the wall of the building on the opposite side of the street from the alleyway, Natsu's back to me as he faced down whatever was in the darkness. His arms stretched out on either side of my body, palms facing backward to silently tell me, "stay put."

Something clattered in the alleyway, and I jumped. Whatever the "something" was streaked down to the far end, where the narrowness opened into the parallel street. From underneath Natsu's arm, I saw the black thing had a long tail, four legs, and large, triangular ears: a silhouette so familiar and ordinary that I nearly gasped in relief.

A cat. It was just a harmless, stray cat.

My head dropped back against the wall of the building and I let out the shaky breath I hadn't realized I was holding. My relief ebbed quickly into unmixed embarrassment at the knowledge that I had been nearly paralyzed with fright because of a little alleycat. On top of that, my nice, normal day had come tumbling around my ears—and I still had to deal with the vampire who had somehow whisked me all the way across the street.

On the heels of this realization, both relief and embarrassment dissolved into vivid awareness of the proximity between my body and Natsu's. With my face immediately between his shoulder blades, I was stunned at the heat emanating from him. It was like standing next to an industrial furnace. Spurred by curiosity, I slowly lifted my palm and brought it in front of my eyes, hovering it parallel to his spine. I was less than an inch from touching the fabric of his vest, but even without fully putting my hand on him, I could feel his blazing temperature against my skin.

Another thing to cache away in my slowly growing store of vampire knowledge: they were _really warm_. At least, this one was.

As if just realizing I was there, Natsu craned his neck to look back at me, and I jerked my hand away from him. Suddenly shy of making eye contact, I averted my gaze to somewhere around his chin.

"Hi," he greeted, sounding as nonchalant as when he had broken into my apartment. The sharp-toothed smile followed, and it did something weird to my heart rate. Gulping, I nodded silently, still staring at his chin and failing to quell the butterflies swirling up from the pit of my stomach.

"Sorry for pouncing on you like that."

His tone was apologetic, but he wasn't moving. He hadn't even lowered his arms. There was no way I could slip out from behind him without some part of me brushing up against some part of him. Feeling caught, I cleared my throat softly, finally directing my eyes upward to meet his when I answered:

"It's okay. It was just a cat."

His dark eyes slid back in the direction of the alley, and his smile slipped.

"Yeah…" he trailed off, sounding anything but convinced. However, he lowered his arms and turned around to face me, casting a final look into the darkness to make sure it really was empty. To my discomfort, he didn't move any farther away from me, and the wall of the building against my back prevented escape. But to be fair, I wasn't sure I could move yet.

"Do you always walk this way alone?" he asked. I was growing a little accustomed to his dizzying jumps in conversation, but nothing could have been more disorienting than having a walking inferno with a lethal smile question me about my daily routine.

"Yes?" My simple response tweaked into a question as the vowel drew itself out.

"Hm."

Concise. Enigmatic. Frustrating. All very characteristic of the Natsu I was gradually coming to know.

"Is that all?" I asked, irritation at his vague acknowledgment trampling roughshod over the shyness that sent blood into my cheeks.

He didn't look away from me for an instant, but angled his body to position himself directly between me and the alleyway across the street.

"Just be careful, okay?"

My eyes widened, and he held them with his honest, concerned gaze. Then, he and his blazing heat disappeared as suddenly as they arrived, taking with them the electric charge of his presence. Before I could move again, I saw the end of a white scarf disappearing around the corner at the far end of the dark alley.

I had gotten used to the idea of a vampire hunting me, but I hadn't prepared myself for the possibility of one protecting me.

* * *

His sharp nose pinpointed the telltale "off" scent that had been hanging around the alleyway, and he followed it at lightning speed. Lucy had said it was a cat, but Natsu knew what cats smelled like. Hell, Happy had solidified that particular odor so deep in his sensory bank that he could smell any feline within a dozen miles. And that black creature was no ordinary cat.

The scent led him unswervingly to the edge of Magnolia, where smaller buildings interspersed the more open layout, and the paved roads gave way to bumpy, rutted footpaths, and finally empty forest. Checking the angle of the approaching sunset, Natsu abruptly stopped his chase as he realized what lay due south of the city.

 _Finem Lux._


	7. Sforzando

_Asynchronous duet: when another's past_

 _Plays harmony to your present._

* * *

A few minutes after I walked into the apartment, I realized that I was the only one there. Juvia was already out with Gray again, and Levy hadn't come home yet. As much as I wanted to hear news from Erza or Jellal, I didn't think either of them would have anything new to tell me. Negotiations with the nest took time. I still didn't know much about vampires, but _that_ I was reasonably sure of.

Despite my secure, familiar surroundings, I felt the urgent need for escapism. My brain was turning into a pile of mush where facts refused to part with fiction, and I craved quiet time to try and sort things out. Of course, the natural venue was to write. Although I had no idea what words would end up bleeding onto the paper, I desperately needed to get them out somewhere.

Once I walked into my room, the first thing I did was open up the bolted window. It felt stiflingly hot in the entire apartment, and Erza's caution about the building's security seemed to me a bit excessive. After taking a grateful breath of fresh air, the next thing I did was draw the blinds across the squares of glass. The sun hadn't completely gone down, but its dying rays refracted in brilliant crimson shards off the mirror on the other side of the room. I didn't need to be reminded of anything related to fire, vampires, blood, or all three. Sitting down at my desk, I brought out a brand new sheet of paper, and pushed aside the half-page or so I had already written on the newest chapter. My brain was in no state for continuity, so I would settle for whatever I was able to create in the form of half-baked scribbling. Of course, once I gave my imagination free reign, it immediately fixated on just one thing: bloodsong. My conversation with Levy about the obscure legend still kept tugging on my concentration like a mystery begging to be solved. Novel forgotten, I set my hand against the paper, pen tip hovering above the blankness, and wrote two words.

" _Finem Lux_."

I paused, adjusting to the unfamiliar phrase. I'd never heard it before, considering I didn't do much wrestling with dead languages in my line of work. My hand had written it without prompting, and it made me uncomfortable that I couldn't explain why.

I was about to embark on a search for a dictionary to shed some light on the enigma, when a sudden lightheadedness sent my vision reeling, and a black curtain dropped in front of my eyes.

 _Flames curled up into the night sky, and the stars were tinged greenish-gray with thick smoke from the burning city. He lay perfectly still on the blistered ground, waiting for death to swallow him up. Every inch of his skin was cracked by heat, his dark eyes filming over in shock, and something akin to resignation. This must be what came after the screaming ended._

I shook my head, covering my eyes with one hand. The image was seared onto the inside of my eyelids, and I had _heard_ the sparks popping from the remnants of the enormous fire. My ears rang, and before I could move, I was dragged back into the sudden night.

 _Footsteps crunched over the ruined ground, close by his head, and if he could have moved, he would have seen a dark figure lean down to crouch over him._

 _"You're the only one left."_

 _The voice was real, but the words weren't. There had been thousands of people in the city. He couldn't be the only one left._

 _"Do you want to stay alive?"_

 _Once again, the man with the cracked skin couldn't put meaning to the words. The breath rattling out of his lungs was surely his last. Still, he told the truth._

 _"Yes."_

 _It came out barely audible, but the unknown figure still heard it. The smoky stars smeared into darkness as the dying man's eyes drooped closed. The two sharp stings on his neck must have been from the charred rocks that dug into his back, or else…just his imagination._

 _"Then so you shall."_

 _The voice's echo left him hanging over a vast sea of unconsciousness, into which he willingly plunged._

Blinking back into the familiarity of my own room, I didn't realize that the cold sweat breaking out everywhere on my skin didn't explain the extra moisture creeping from the corners of my eyes. The faded wallpaper and secondhand furniture in my bedroom swam back into focus, but I felt far away from home.

The hand holding the pen was now shaking uncontrollably on the surface of the desk, and the other one stayed on my face to wipe the tiny drops from my eyelids.

"What's happening to me?" I whispered, voice creaky and fragile.

"Good question."

The unexpected response came from behind the blinds, and when I turned my head, I saw Natsu ducking underneath them to lower his silent feet into my bedroom. Maybe Erza might have had a point about the locks after all. Ignoring the eruption of tingles inside my ribcage, I rose from the seat at my desk to turn around and face him. My hands stayed behind my back so their shaking wouldn't be visible, and I pulled on the bottoms of my sleeves with my thumbs to give myself something mindless to do with them. I didn't have the wherewithal to berate him for once again breaking into my apartment, and I was a long ways from being surprised that, once again, he had managed to corner me alone.

"Was that…you?" I asked, still returning from the unfamiliar, burning world into which I had been momentarily dropped.

Natsu's eyebrows shot upwards.

"Was _what_ me?"

I opened my mouth, and realized I didn't have any reason to think it was Natsu who had made an appearance in my vivid, disorienting vision. Furthermore, there was no way to prove what I had seen was anything more than a daydream.

Still, the smoke-filled city had been so viscerally _real_ , and I had seen it through the destroyed eyes of a man who'd just lived and died in hell. Another tear trailed a hot path down my cheek, and Natsu's sharp eyes locked on it instantly.

"What happened?"

He didn't have any business sounding so worried. Especially when the range of my potential answers began with, _"I'm having visions,"_ and ended somewhere around, _"I think I might need a psychiatrist."_

"Nothing," I stated, in what I thought was a credible imitation of honesty.

"Oh, please. I could have heard your blood pressure go up from ten blocks away."

Damn vampire. I arranged my face neutrally.

"Okay, fine, I saw a bug on my desk. I don't like bugs."

Lying was difficult when his black eyes burned right through my poor attempt at deception. It was even worse than trying to keep secrets from Erza. A tiny voice snaked to the forefront of my brain and prodded me to tell the truth—just this once.

"And, also—there's a possibility I'm under some sort of ancient spell. But it was mostly the bug thing."

"A…spell?"

His wide upper lip twitched in disbelief, and I cringed. After appearing to consider my answer for a second, he nodded in acceptance.

"So that's what you were talking about earlier—the 'bloodsong' thing?"

"Wh-what?"

I couldn't believe he had made that connection. Nor could I believe that he was just going to roll with my looney explanation. While I was wrestling with the surprising result of my truthfulness, Natsu took the opportunity to step much closer.

"Are you in danger?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

The fact that my pulse quickened at his proximity did nothing to clear my thoughts, so I pushed my back a little more into the edge of the desk. The temperature in my small bedroom was rising tangibly, and my breathing picked up—not, however, from fear.

"I don't think so. No."

"Even if you knew there was another vampire besides me who's been stalking your apartment?"

My erratic breathing stuttered to a halt.

"What?!"

Oh for pity's sake, _one_ vampire was hard enough to deal with.

"You'd be safer if you got away from here."

I looked at Natsu askance. To me, it was abundantly clear that of the two most recent threats to my person, _he_ was a strong contender for the top spot. And now here he was, casually giving me safety advice in my own bedroom.

"Erza and Jellal will make sure I'm all right."

"Really? So they know I'm here, then?"

His mild mockery suspended my previously unshakeable confidence in my friends. Considering I had let Natsu in myself—albeit by accident—he had a point.

"No, they don't. But you're not going to hurt me."

My words, spoken with quiet confidence, made his eyes go wide. I wanted to question my conviction; yet I was certain the statement was true. The sparks rising up from the destroyed city lit up the inside of my eyelids as I took a deep, steadying breath.

"Will you come with me? I could keep you safe."

My eyes snapped open, dissipating the crackling sparks and replacing them with the insistent clang of alarm bells.

"What do you mean?"

"Your friends can't _really_ protect you from vampires. They can try, but it won't work."

Staring up at him wasn't doing great things for my concentration, so I shut my eyes again.

There wasn't a single good reason I should trust a vampire I'd only met the day before. On the other hand, everything he was saying poked more holes in the comfortable blanket of complacency I'd wrapped around myself. If I'd been less distracted by the surging tingles in my chest, I would have realized that apart from his testimony, there was no way I could know that another vampire _had_ been anywhere near me or my friends. But, just as when he had said he wouldn't hurt me, I somehow found myself believing him.

The alarm bells in my head were now ringing from a very long ways away. They were easy enough to ignore. So I nodded, squeezing my eyes even tighter before I ended up changing my mind again.

I heard his surprised gasp, and assumed it was triggered by my acquiescence. However, when I re-opened my eyes and looked at him, I saw he was staring past me and down to the piece of paper on my desk. He looked at the only two words written there, and grabbed it up for a closer examination.

"Where did this come from?" he demanded, his voice low and urgent.

"It's just something I wrote down," I said, bewildered by his shift in mood.

"Have you heard of it before?"

His fingers were beginning to singe the paper; I saw a tendril of smoke rise from the edge of the " _F"_ in " _Finem_."

"No, I haven't. Please don't set my things on fire!"

I glanced at the hallway smoke alarm, worrying that he might activate the sprinkler system.

"Lucy, are you sure? You've never seen or heard this name before—not even in passing?"

He balled up the piece of paper in one large fist, eyebrows creeping inward over his sharp nose.

"I'm sure of it. Why does it matter?"

He wasn't listening to me anymore. Rather, he was across the room in under a second, slamming the window closed and pulling the blinds back over it.

"If you're going to come with me, it has to be now."

"Wh-what?! I don't—what do you _mean_?"

He walked back to me, and scattered ashes from the palm of his hand into the wastebasket next to my desk. I realized it was the remnants of the piece of paper.

"I know it's confusing, and you probably have a hundred questions, but you need to get out of here—right now."

On top of everything I'd heard about and been through in the last few days, this was quickly becoming the last straw. Everyone seemed to think it was okay to tell me what to do without providing any sort of explanation, and I was _done_ letting it slide. Besides, what could two little Latin words have to do with me getting out of my home? My annoyance and anxiety spilled over, bubbling furiously to the front of my throat.

"I'm not moving until you tell me what the hell ' _Finem Lux'_ is, and why it's important. And while you're at it, you can explain why I'm suddenly writing down words I've never heard before, and seeing snippets of someone else's life, and you can give me an inkling as to why whenever I look at _you_ , it feels like I've stuck my finger into an electrical socket! And I want to know about why you've been tailing me, and no bullshit answers this time like 'I don't know,' or 'it's not important,' because no one just follows somebody else around— _especially_ not a vampire—without having a reason for it. So if you want to get me out of here, you can start talking—otherwise you'll have to drag me away kicking and screaming."

Natsu's eyes widened. After a few silent seconds, he blindsided me with that fanged grin again.

"Okay."

I didn't deliver on my half of the "kicking and screaming" agreement until we were halfway down the side of the apartment building. Given that I was traveling at vampire speed while slung over his shoulder, I couldn't really be blamed for my shocked silence.

"Sorry, didn't really have time to answer all of those questions at once. One or two, maybe—but for now this will have to do," he said, setting me down smoothly at the foot of the building.

I twisted my neck to gape at the kitchen window several stories above, and found myself still dizzy from the surprisingly painless journey to the ground.

"Do you have something against doors?" I asked in a small voice.

"This way's faster."

Since looking upward made my head spin, I returned my attention to what was in front of me. There, I discovered that for the second time today, my back was to the wall and Natsu was blocking any exit route. Maybe it was another vampire thing, or perhaps just a _Natsu_ thing, but this time I was less paralyzed by it. I thought I might be able to scoot past him to freedom, and in the process of accomplishing this goal, my uncovered right hand brushed his bare arm just above the elbow. It didn't immediately occur to me that this was our first skin-to-skin contact since meeting.

The next few moments were nothing but a blur. First, the teasing tingle of electricity exploded into a white-hot blaze where my fingers met his skin, and it drew a sudden yelp from me. Next, Natsu's reaction drove all reason from my mind as he pinned me to the side of the wall with his entire body.

The physical pull between us had always been hard to ignore. Yes, for some time I had managed to push aside the intermittent flickers of energy that danced in my chest when he was nearby. But it was a very different story now. The sensation became overpowering, pulsing everywhere in my body and screaming its way to the front of my mind.

It seemed to be just as bad for Natsu, or maybe worse. His large hands were pressed against the wall on either side of my ears, and I could see the long muscles coiled to their limit. I hardly breathed as I lifted my gaze to his face, where his eyes were squeezed shut, lips peeled back from sharp white teeth. Everything about his expression communicated enormous strain.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from a few errant strands of pink hair that had slipped over his forehead, just above an eyebrow. It would be so easy to brush them back into place. So easy, and so, so, stupid.

Controlling my itching fingertips, I let out a long, careful breath I hadn't realized I was holding. When he felt the air pass over his skin, some of the wrinkles between his eyebrows smoothed out, and his eyes opened up again, locking with mine.

"Sorry," he whispered, an apologetic grimace tilting one corner of his mouth.

"It's okay," I affirmed, just as quietly.

I felt the waves of heat radiating off his skin, and beads of perspiration began to form above my upper lip. I started to fidget, twisting my fingers into the fabric of my shirt where I had pressed my hands automatically against my stomach. Natsu's overwhelming proximity and heat combined to drive every rational thought out of my head, while his eyes never stopped boring into mine. I noticed they weren't onyx, like I originally thought. His pitch black pupils were bordered by a lighter color that shimmered somewhere between green and gray.

"Hey, Lucy?" his voice rasped close to my ear.

I hummed, unable to make words.

"You smell really nice."

Coming from a vampire, those words should have been enough to send me running in the other direction. Instead, heat expanded below the pit of my stomach, and my heart rate picked up noticeably. His hot breath fanned over my left ear as he bent his upper body possessively over mine, mouth hovering millimeters from my temple.

Between the uneven patterns of my breath, I managed to falter out:

"Isn't this the part where you recover yourself, and we awkwardly try to never speak of this again?"

He made a noise in the back of his throat, something that sounded to me like a growling, predatory purr.

I didn't listen to the logical part of my brain, which informed me that I needed to duck out from under him and get far, far away. Another part of my brain—a significantly larger part—cheered outright when his gravelly tone responded:

"Why would I do that when all I want is to keep you right here?"


	8. Repente

_Each revealed truth is measured by_

 _The thickness of your new skin._

* * *

Even if I knew my life would end right there, I couldn't have pushed away from him. It simply wasn't an option. The heat of his hands trapped both sides of my face before our skin touched again, his thumbs meeting under my chin to gently tip my face up. No electricity this time, just the extraordinary sensation of being able to touch a living flame.

Gaze climbing slowly from the middle of his chest, where his long scarf swung towards me, I hesitated before locking eyes with him again. When I finally did, I felt like I'd been punched. Clearly, Natsu was just as helpless as I was—and I wasn't sure if that should be reassuring or terrifying.

"Lucy…"

His lips barely moved as he breathed my name. My eyes fluttered closed when I felt the tip of his nose brush against mine—the barest hint of touch. Hovering on the tightrope between ecstasy and torture, I waited, and _waited_ , before…finally _,_ his mouth drifted against my lips. So soft that I thought I might have imagined it.

Taking on a mind of their own, my hands found their way to his chest, right over where the scarf was knotted. The millimeter of space between his lips and mine closed again, and my fists tightened into the fabric, one thumb brushing against the bare skin of his chest. The purr that rolled up through his throat thrummed underneath my fingers, and his kiss was no longer a question. Teasing my bottom lip, he drew it in and between his own. As I knew already, his entire skin was so devastatingly hot—yet somehow his lips burned at an even higher temperature, and I gasped with the sheer heat of it.

He suddenly broke the kiss after my surprised sound. I managed to bite off my disappointed whimper, hanging onto a vestige of dignity. My eyelids gradually opened again, and the breath I had just taken left in a whoosh. Natsu's eyes burned into mine with something intense and disarmingly uncertain. I reached up, finally tucking those stray hairs away from his forehead. Every muscle in his face stayed motionless, but when my hand passed over his scorching forehead and down across his cheek, his expression softened, mouth relaxing into a near-smile.

Before I could speak, he stiffened again and his eyes, now extremely alert, snapped to the golden window several stories above.

"Someone's here."

Still in recovery mode, I couldn't quite speak.

"Mmm…?"

"It's one of your police friends. I just heard the door to your apartment open."

The fog in my brain cleared slightly. If it was Erza, Natsu might not get out of there alive.

"Which one?"

"The redhead."

He didn't sound fearful enough. It was rumored that Erza had once reduced the Magnolia chief of police to a crying mess in his office, and after meeting the scarred, stern-voiced man myself, I was fairly confident my friend would be able to put the fear of immediate and painful death into a vampire, no matter how tough he might think himself.

"Are you still going to come with me?"

Natsu recaptured my attention with the question. The cocksure attitude I had come to expect from him was not there anymore, and the tinge of vulnerability in his voice prompted me to answer honestly.

"I think I might have to."

He grinned at me again, slowly this time, which did very interesting things to my heart rate.

"So…you just can't stay away from me, can you?"

Scratch that. If Erza didn't kill him, I'd do it myself.

" _No_. I meant—"

He cut me off with a "shushing" gesture as he abruptly looked up at the window again, eyes focusing on the square of brilliance on the side of the dark building. I was prepared to be offended at Natsu's dismissal, but his shocked inhale distracted me. His sharp ears had picked up something else from my apartment. Something he apparently was not expecting.

"Shit. She brought an exemplar."

His hand over my mouth suppressed a scream of outrage as my legs were suddenly swept right out from under me. Apparently my departure was no longer optional. Thirty seconds later, as I was being whisked in Natsu's arms through the backstreets of Magnolia, I gathered enough breath to gasp,

"Where are we going?!"

"Somewhere safer."

Jostling against his chest, I tried to avoid biting off my own tongue as I asked:

"And wh-where exactly might that be?"

"You…might not like it that much."

This discouraging answer caused me to stiffen, and I craned my head to look past his shoulder to see where we were headed. Thanks to Natsu's effortless speed, we were journeying through a part of Magnolia that I would never have been caught in on my own. The blue summer moonlight replaced the liquid brilliance of sunset, sharpening the corners of broken windows and painting the shadows an even deeper black. The few occupied streets Natsu took were peopled with the denizens of smoky dive bars, poorly lit gentlemen's clubs, the occasional red light establishment—and I felt much safer in my current company than I would have in the presence of any human males in that area.

Natsu's rapid pace was so smooth that I nearly forgot I was being carried. Nearly forgot that this vampire—whom I had just voluntarily _kissed_ —was hurtling with me in his arms toward an unknown destination. The sparkling pinpricks of his gaze landed on my face, on my downcast eyes. He wasn't looking where he was going, but he probably didn't need to. I had forgotten he could hear the tension climbing in my body without my having to say a word.

"The neighborhood isn't exactly reassuring me," I said, worry creeping into my voice.

"Don't worry, Lucy. I'm taking you somewhere safe."

Before I could answer, his pace slowed considerably. Then, he set me down so fast my stomach dropped, and I made myself dizzy twisting my head to every side looking for some landmark I recognized. While I was trying to determine my location, my legs shook under me from the shock of being carried to the other end of the city in about five minutes.

I was far away from any of the familiar streets—that much I could tell. Beyond that, it was a mystery. I couldn't even see a sign with the name of the road. A guttering street lamp about ten yards away was the only source of light, and several dingy doors lined the narrow street, which dead-ended in a high, rough brick wall. As far as I could tell, there wasn't another living soul in sight. Natsu began walking towards the nearest door, which looked like it belonged to a rundown hostel. The dumpster next to it flooded the area with the stench of refuse, and acid climbed in my throat as I took a few unsteady steps after him.

"You aren't seriously saying _this_ is the safe place," I said weakly, my knees finally turning to water.

Immediately appearing at my side, he slid a hot arm under my shoulders to support me.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have set you down so fast."

I shot him a glare that could have curdled milk, and tried to ignore the very hard, very warm bare arm that was the only thing holding me up.

"What you shouldn't have done is _kidnapped_ me. I never actually said I'd come with you."

He grinned crookedly and started awkwardly shuffling me in the direction of the door.

"But you didn't say no!"

"Because you threw me out the window!"

"I didn't _throw_ you. I _escorted_ you."

I stopped just a few feet short of the dingy doorway, anger keying my voice upwards.

"Do you really think Erza and Jellal will just let me disappear like that? They're going to come looking for us—for _you_ , I mean."

Natsu withdrew his arm from under my shoulders and put a few inches of space between us. The night wasn't cold, but the absence of his burning touch left me shivering. I pulled the long sleeves of my thin shirt down farther on my wrists and wished I had a jacket.

"I'm not worried about it."

"You're not even a little concerned about what will happen now between the nest and the police?"

Something tightened in his face. Without looking at me, he walked forward to push the door open, which released an overwhelming reek of rancid flesh and animal carcasses.

"I can answer some of your questions, but first you have to get inside."

I was already pinching my nose to avoid passing out from the stench, but one look at his face told me Natsu was dead serious. He avoided my gaze as I walked through the doorway, and the warm tingles of his attention fell glancingly on my back as he shut the door behind us. The darkness was stagnant, and even though I breathed conscientiously through my mouth, I could practically taste the pungent air.

"This way."

Natsu pushed me gently towards a dim light at the end of the room, and a few cautious steps later, I saw it illuminated a short stairway to an upper level. I started up the stairs eagerly, needing to escape the suffocation of the ground level enclosure. At the top of the ascent, I saw a closed door outlined by a thin square of light from the room beyond. As I struggled one-handedly with the latch, a larger hand plucked at my sleeve. In the dim light, I made out Natsu's face looking down at me in amusement. He held a key that was obviously meant for the old-fashioned, clumsy lock.

"This will work better, I think."

I couldn't respond, now that I was firmly holding my breath. Natsu opened up the door, which creaked on its complaining hinges, and in less than a second he had moved aside for me to get in. Black spots popped in front of my eyes, and I stumbled into the room after him to draw in an enormous breath. The ungodly smell was still slightly present, but much fainter now that Natsu had closed the door again. He leaned against it with his arms crossed, to watch me—apparently to make sure I got my wind back without collapsing again.

After a few deep breaths of nearly clean air, I was able to straighten up and face him with utter stupefaction.

"What _was_ that? It smelled like an old slaughterhouse."

He chuckled, making the muscles underneath his vest quiver. The next second, something ash-blue and hairy darted between my ankles, yowling grievously, and jumped onto Natsu's chest above his crossed arms. It settled there, fixing its gigantic eyes on me as if I were a terrifying intruder.

"I missed you too, Happy," Natsu greeted the thing, scratching its furry head with one finger. "And to answer your question, Lucy—this is my home."

* * *

Since Jellal had elected to stay behind at the nest in an effort to—politely—wring information out of some of the other vampires, it was Erza who stood in the doorway to the three girls' apartment, hands on hips and a look of profound displeasure on her face. Her fingers twitched towards her holstered weapon as the uninvited and unwelcome visitor strode deeper into the apartment.

"Natsu has been here recently—certainly within the last two days," remarked the tall, yellow-haired vampire mere seconds after passing through the living room. A scar shaped like a lightning bolt carved a jagged path up one side of his face, slicing over an eyelid and the thick eyebrow above. He swiveled his head to observe the doorway into the adjoining kitchen, then the opening to the short hallway, as if he were in search of something.

"Precisely. Just as I told you at the nest." She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, and barely succeeded. "Is there any reason you insisted on coming _here_ , Laxus?"

He took his time answering, silently choosing instead to walk down the hallway into Juvia's empty room. Once inside, he turned back to address Erza's question. She had followed him into the room, her eye twitching noticeably. In her opinion, there had been far too many vampires in this building in the last 48 hours.

"Talented as you are, Scarlet, your senses are acutely lacking. There is a story in every scent, and following the clues it leaves will provide us with the tools we need to find out what is happening to your friends. This is the room that was left untouched, I can already tell that easily."

Brushing past her, Laxus moved on to Levy's room, which was also currently uninhabited. In between casting more hair-raising glares in the vampire's direction, Erza began to grow anxious about why all the girls might still be out of the building. Following him into the next bedroom, she discerned from the light outside the window that darkness was just beginning to settle over the city. Juvia had made her after-work plans with Gray known loud and clear, but Levy and Lucy should be coming back within minutes.

After she stopped in Levy's room, Erza knew instantly from the look on Laxus' face that he had just discovered something new. A muscle in his prominent jaw began to tic.

"So he hasn't just disappeared either."

Erza balled her fists next to her sides, calling on her patience to prevent her from doing something very stupid—such as, for instance, shooting him. Her next words came out in a warning growl.

" _Who_. Who hasn't disappeared?"

"Gajeel Redfox."

Erza's closed fists whitened, and her irritation morphed into vague dread. Laxus continued:

"He was supposed to return yesterday night from feeding outside the city, but no one has heard from him in the last two days."

The cold stone that had settled in her stomach pressed deeper towards the floor.

"So—let me get this straight—not only are you saying that one of the youngest and most dangerous Magnolia vampires has been inside my friend's bedroom, but that he has _also_ vanished into thin air?"

Laxus nodded silently. She followed him without commentary into the last bedroom—Lucy's—and nearly collided with the vampire's broad back as he stopped short at the doorway, his foot half-raised to take a step into the room. Genuinely baffled at his hesitation, Erza backed up and watched him enter the room slowly, warily. Unable to see his face, she couldn't truly gauge his reaction until he turned toward her again. When he was about halfway into the small room, he turned on a heel, lightning-fast, and kicked over the wastepaper basket next to Lucy's tiny desk. A few wadded-up pages tumbled out, along with a handful of something black and powdery that settled vividly on the light carpet.

"Natsu's fire?" she asked, gesturing at the fresh ashes that spread like a stain on Lucy's clean carpet. She hoped to prod an explanation from Laxus, who seemed to have momentarily forgotten she was in the room. He was staring down at the black specks intently.

"Yes. And he was here, just minutes ago, with your friend Lucy."

Looking up at Erza, Laxus wore a serious, drawn expression.

"You said Lucy Heartfilia's and Levy McGarden's blood was stolen?"

She nodded, something gnawing in the back of her mind: a revelation she wished she could ignore.

"I think I may have just discovered where it ended up."

Erza's mouth set in a tight line. Laxus' sharp senses had picked up the evidence of something she had suspected, but been unwilling to face. Whoever had stolen Lucy's blood had somehow fed it to Natsu Dragneel. Now Lucy was all alone somewhere—and he was hunting her.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'M ALIVE. And I'm so sorry. I really, really didn't mean to take this long to update, but to be honest I didn't have some of the biggest plot points figured out yet, and I thought that might be pretty important to do first. :) Those of you who left reviews asking if I was going to come back to this really helped light the fire under me, so thank you! :D

Hopefully you'll all still continue to read and enjoy this, even though I can't promise regular and/or fast updates for the next few months. I wish I had nothing to do but write fanfic, but sadly, this is not the case. _Don't worry though_ _,_ I love this story too much to let it die unfinished. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. *hugs*


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